13 Easy Ways To Identify A Clause

“They run” is a clause. It tells you the who (they) and the action (run). “They run to the store” is also a clause. The “action” uses more words, but it’s still one idea. “My dog is a good boy” is also a clause. The word “is” (or “are”) counts as an “action. " To identify the clause, students need to understand the subject-verb basic construction. For example, in the sentence Mary runs to the store, they can find Mary is the subject, and runs which is the verb. A clause is something that paints the picture bigger.

The sentence “After work, my dad cooks dinner” has one phrase and one clause. The clause is “my dad cooks dinner. " It has a subject (“my dad”) and an action (“cooks dinner”). The phrase is “After work. " It doesn’t tell us about a subject or an action.

Look at “The happy young students run quickly to the large candy store. " Cross out the adjectives and adverbs. Now it’s “the students run to the candy store. " That tells you a who and an action, so it’s a clause. Now look at “Slowly climbing the big staircase. " Cross out the adjectives and adverbs. Now it’s “climbing the staircase”. This doesn’t tell us who is climbing. That means it can’t be a clause. This is a phrase.

My friend holding the pizza → “Is it true that my friend holding the pizza?” This doesn’t make sense, so it’s a phrase. People who walk fast → “Is it true that people who walk fast?” This also fails the test. It’s just another phrase. Try this test with “people who walk fast are annoying. " See how it makes a normal sentence? This is a clause. It tells us the subject (“people who walk fast”). It also tells us the action (they “are annoying”).

“The tree grew very tall” is an independent clause. It is a whole sentence by itself. Look at the sentence “While eating breakfast, I read a comic book. " The main part of the sentence is “I read a comic book. " You can write it on its own and it is a complete sentence. This means “I read a comic book” is an independent clause.

Can you identify the two clauses in “The cloud is moving fast, but I can run faster”? “But” is the connecting word in this sentence. It connects two independent clauses. Everything before the “but” is one independent clause: “The cloud is moving fast. " Everything after the “but” is another independent clause: “I can run faster. "

“Because I baked a second cake” is a dependent clause. It has a subject (“I”) and an action (“baked a second cake”). But it’s not a complete sentence. It has an unanswered question: Because of what? “Because I baked a second cake, everyone had enough to eat” is a complete sentence. It has two clauses. “Because I baked a second cake” is a dependent clause. “Everyone had enough to eat” is an independent clause.

In the sentence “A woman who knows about spiders gave a presentation,” the word “who” starts a relative clause. “Who knows about spiders” is the relative clause. It tells you something about the woman. It can’t be a complete sentence on its own. “Who” is the subject and “knows about spiders” is the action (the “predicate”). These clauses can begin with the words who, whom, whose, that, which, when, where, or why. [6] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC’s on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source

A relative clause comes after a noun. Look at the sentence “the bear you warned me about ate my tent”. The relative clause “you warned me about” comes right after the noun “bear. " You can cut the relative clause from the sentence and it still makes sense. Try removing “you warned me about. " What you have left is still a complete sentence: “The bear ate my tent”. You can put back a “who” word. In this case, you can use the word “that. " “The bear that you warned me about ate my tent”.

Here’s a practice problem: Identify the clauses in the sentence “The rushing river flooded the field. " At first, it looks like there are two verbs: “rushing” and “flooded. " But the word “rushing” is an adjective here. It is not a verb anymore, so it can’t be the main action of a clause. That means this whole sentence is only one clause. Try this more difficult problem: Identify the clauses in the sentence “The bear living in the woods drinks from the stream running down the mountain. " In this sentence, neither “living” and “running” are real verbs. They are adjectives that start the phrases “living in the woods” and “running down the mountain. " The only real verb is “drinks,” so the whole sentence is one clause.

“Sleeping is my favorite thing to do” is a clause. The subject of this clause is “sleeping. " It might help to notice that “sleeping” is in the same place a regular subject usually goes, right before the verb: “Sleeping is” instead of “The tree is. "

“A cracked window let the cold wind through” is one clause, with the main verb “let. " The word “cracked” isn’t a verb here, so it can’t be part of a second clause. It’s an adjective describing a window that is already cracked. “A window cracked and a dog howled” is a sentence with two independent clauses: “a window cracked” and “a dog howled. " In these cases, the “-ed” words are verbs that tell you what just happened. If the word is in front of the subject, it’s almost always an adjective, not a verb. If it’s after the subject, it could be either. A window cracked by a hailstone is a phrase, not a clause. It’s describing what already happened to the window, not what the window is doing now.

I want to eat is one clause. “Want” is the main verb. “To eat” is just part of the full predicate “want to eat. " It is not a main verb, so it cannot be part of a new clause.